[Updated]Steam Holiday Sale now on its 15th day, sale extended to the 7th

[UPDATE] It looks like Steam is feeling a bit more generous for the new year. The Steam Holiday Sale, which was planned to end on January 5, has now been extended until the end of the weekend. So you have until January 7 to grab some titles.

If you haven't been on Steam lately, your missing out. The Steam Holiday is still ongoing and as usual, the price cuts are ridiculous. I'm sure some of you still have money left to burn after the holidays because you have until January 5 to make those regretful purchases.

Today is the 15th day of the sale. Civilization 5 and it's expansions, the Thief series, and Bastion is down by 75%. Tropico 4, originally $30 bucks, is now down to 6 bucks, which is an 80% discount. Price for I Am Alive is down by 66%, while Football Manager 2013 is down by 50%. Yesterday's deals, which included Magicka, the Tomb Raider series, Pain Killer Series, and KOTOR 1 and 2 are still on sale for a couple more hours.

Flash deals and the community choice is still changing every few hours, so be sure to check back every so often.

I've already caved in some deals. A couple of days ago, Orcs Must Die 2 was on sale for 75% off and I just had to get it. Also, me being a Civilization fan and already owning the original Civ 5, I bought the expansion Gods and Kings for 75% off as well.

[Source: Steam, Gameinformer]

Ragnarok 2: Legend of the Second Open Beta starts Jan 3, only four countries allowed to enter

Ragnarok 2: Legend of the Second's Open Beta will go live on January 3 2013, at 1300 HRS (+8 GMT), but a surprising change to who can access the game was announced 19 hours before the servers go live. From what was first considered open to the whole world, RO2 will now only be available in four countries - Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. 

This is a major upset to most of the Ragnarok fans all over the world. Ragnarok 2's open beta was originally planned for December 27 and had no restriction on who can access the game. When the 27th came, players had difficulty logging in. The next day, Asiasoft announced that due to the high traffic that resulted in servers being congested, the open beta was rescheduled to January 3 2013.

With the open beta rescheduled, stress tests were conducted everyday for 2-3 hours until the 31st of December.

Now we are roughly 19 hours before open beta, and Asiasoft shocks the world by announcing that due to their licence agreement with the game's developer, Gravity Co., Ltd, Ragnarok 2: Legend of the Second will only be available im Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. They should have mentioned this first before announcing anything else, because now they have a huge fanbase upset by the sudden change, especially players who participated in the stress tests that are not from the four countries mentioned. With all the comments now flooding the RO2 Facebook page, a lot of players feel scammed or used, thinking they were only used to test the game's server capacity and performance.

A petition was already created asking for international servers.

[Source: Ragnarok 2 site]

Diablo 3's team deathmatch cancelled

The long-awaited PVP content, specifically the team deathmatch mode, has now been scrapped. Jay Wilson broke the news to their fans over at Diablo 3's official blog. Not all is lost, the ability to duel players is still a go though, which is in the 1.0.7 patch planned for release sometime this month.

Certainly, we've gotten a lot of benefits from the development of Team Deathmatch, especially in the areas of controls and combat model tuning, but at this point we don't believe it's the experience we feel it needs to be in order to ship, so we will be shelving it for now and exploring other options.

This is quite a disappointment since it's been nearly 8 months since the game went live and I'm sure a couple of players was sticking around, planning, patiently waiting for PVP to go live. But not all is lost. dueling will come with the 1.0.7 patch that's schedule sometime this month. It won't be what we expected even before the game was released, but at least we finally get to beat players up with gears found/bought after playing the game for thousands of hours.

With the current state of Diablo 3, it makes sense to why they are having such a hard time making PVP work. Balancing alone is mostly what's keeping most developers busy. It's hard to manage a system that randomly generates stats for weapons.

For us it comes to a few issues, one of which is depth.  Simply fighting each other with no other objectives or choices to make gets old relatively quickly.  We've brought a lot of people in to try out Team Deathmatch and, while some found it entertaining, most of our testers didn't feel like it was something they'd want to do beyond a few hours.

They are now working on a replacement. Don't hold your breathe though, I have a feeling this "replacement" won't see the light of day anytime soon, or even when the game turns 1 year old on May.

Curious on how it looks? Check out the video below.

[Source: Diablo 3 Blog]

Tomb Raider reboot will have multiplayer after all

To end 2012, another franchise that doesn't need multiplayer gets one anyway. Official Xbox Magazine confirms that the upcoming Tomb Raider reboot will have multiplayer.

Official Xbox Magazine revealed their February 2013 cover and confirms that Tomb Raider will come with multiplayer when it ships on March 5. Shocked? Not really.

I'm not fond with games dumping multiplayer just to add more appeal. Some titles that are not fit to have multiplayer, makes one anyway, and the final product turns out to be content that can be forgotten in one sitting. Such games like Bioshock 2, and Dead Space 2, tried adding a new twist of competitive multiplayer, but fell flat in the end. This is what I think is going to happen to Tomb Raider's multiplayer. But some games that tried have proved me wrong.

Assassin's Creed, one franchise that added multiplayer in Brotherhood, ended up with a unique mode that turned out to be a lot of fun. Another one is Uncharted, who added their own multiplayer on the second game, provided a great third person competitive shooter that made good use of Uncharted's simple climbing mechanic to make it stand out from the rest.

My first reaction towards Tomb Raider now having multiplayer is not a happy one, but I'll give it a chance because you never know, they might have something good. Not much info has been given too, so when they say multiplayer, it could mean coop, or both. In a Tomb Raider blog, they mention that the multiplayer was inspired by Lara Croft and the Guardian of the Light coop. So who knows, We'll just have to see what Crystal Dynamics has to show in the coming days.

[Source: OXM, Joystiq]

List of games coming out in Q1 2013 - Part 2

Here's PART 2. Just in case you missed it, Click here for PART 1.

Crysis 3 - February 19 (PS3, Xbox 360, PC)

I say this a lot whenever Crysis 3 is brought up, but this is one game that feels like an extension of the second game rather than an actual sequel. The changes are quite minimal that I can easily say it seems like Crysis 2.5. But it doesn't mean it won't be a great game though. Crysis 2 is still one of the most visually demanding titles out there and the added abilities the suit gives you makes it a fun shooter. The multiplayer from the second game proved it could work with all those nano suit abilities at the players disposal, so I'm curious on the improvements for the competitive side.

Tomb Raider - March 5 (PS3, Xbox 360, PC)

When I first heard that a reboot of the franchise is underway with a more serious tone, I didn't pay much attention to it. When the first screenshots and gameplay was released, they weren't kidding. This is an origins story that shows players how Lara Croft becomes the iconic badass heroine we all know. The Tomb Raider reboot is different gameplay-wise compared  to past titles, but it's a good change to push the franchise into a more modern feel we are now familiar with when it comes to action adventure.

Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm - March 12 (PC)

The long-awaited expansion for the most successful RTS game out there is finally coming out. The expansion continues were Wings of Liberty left off, and is pretty much the Zerg campaign, where you control the now human Kerrigan and her swarm of Zerg forces as she attempts to get revenge over Arcturus Mengsk. The expansion will have 20 Zerg campaign missions and new units for each race. A lot of changes will also be made for the uber popular multiplayer for balancing purposes. I've played my share of Starcraft 2, and I'm eager to see how the story plays out. Hopefully by the time we are done with Heart of the Swarm, it won't take long for Blizzard to release the third expansion that will include the Protoss campaign.

God of War: Ascension - March 13 (PS3)

You'd think after the events of God of War 3, you will never see another God of War game again. But here we are, yet another God of War. Yes, it is hard to move forward in the story, so they tapped on how it all started. God of War: Ascension is set six months after Kratos was tricked into murdering his wife and child, and 10 years before the events of the first God of War. But with how the game is being marketed, the added multiplayer mode is getting all the love since that's all were seeing really.

Gears of War: Judgement - March 19 (Xbox 360)

I'm sure you've figured that Gears of War: Judgment is a prequel. For the first time, you have Marcus Fenix out of the spotlight. Damon Baird and Augustus Cole are the protagonist and is set 30 days after Emergence Day and follows Baird and Cole who faces trial for stealing secret COG technology. In the multiplayer side, Judgement will introduce two new game modes; OverRun, and Free-for-All.

Bioshock: Infinite - March 26 (PS3, Xbox 360, PC)

This is THE game I can't wait to get my hands on. So far, everything I've seen about Bioshock: Infinite makes the wait a lot harder. From the amazing floating city of Columbia, the smart interaction between Booker and Elizabeth, and the gameplay that stays true to the Bioshock name. Man, I just want to play it already. This title has felt a good amount of delays. It was planned for a 2012 release, but was pushed back all the way to 2013 for the developers to polish the hell out of this game. This is a single player campaign only, so don't expect any multiplayer to go with the game.

Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel -March 26 (PS3, Xbox 360, PC)

Equipped with the Frostbite 2 engine ( Battlefield 3), a new pair of protagonists, and an overkill feature that lets you destroy everything, Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel is turning out to be a coop game that should not be missed if you're looking for a coop game. I've always liked Army of Two. I agree that 40th day was phorrible compared to the first game, but the coop features make it tolerable enough to get a few laughs.

Well there you have it, I think. The first three months of 2013 is pretty packed with big titles. I'm already convinced that I'll be getting DmC, Tomb Raider, and Bioshock: Infinite, but what about you? With all the games listed, what are you excited for?

Or maybe I missed something? If I miss a title worth mentioning, by all means hit the comments.